On Tuesday, an X account attributed to a Texas man named Zyron Lewis posted a video of Lewis claiming that in 2012, when he was a middle school student, he was sexually assaulted by James Talarico, the Democratic Senate candidate in Texas. This allegation—which zapped across the internet—was quickly debunked. Talarico was indeed a middle school teacher at that time, and a Zyron Lewis had been a student of his. But the Zyron Lewis in the video was not the real Zyron Lewis. The real Lewis told a factchecking site he had never been abused by Talarico, and X subsequently suspended the interloper.
This attempt to smear Talarico had a familiar ring, for it was similar to an operation mounted by a Russian disinformation network in 2024 that cooked up and spread a similar allegation aboutMinnesota Gov. Tim Walz, then the Democratic vice presidential candidate. The network fabricated a video that falsely claimed Walz had inappropriately touched a foreign exchange student when he was a high school teacher.
Disinformation trackers who analyzed the Talarico smear have attributed it to the same Russian outfit, Storm-1516, that targeted Walz. The Talarico hit is the latest indication that Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s disinformation agents are once again meddling in an American election.
As Mother Jones and other outlets have reported, for about a month, Russian operatives have been circulating fake videos on US social media platforms that hurl scurrilous allegations at Democrats....
On Tuesday, an X account attributed to a Texas man named Zyron Lewis posted a video of Lewis claiming that in 2012, when he was a middle school student, he was sexually assaulted by James Talarico...